The Demon Catchers of Milan Read Online Free

capable of ending the lives of those they do not like. I wish we had gotten here sooner.
    “You must understand. Mia is in danger here. We must take her back with us. Our home in Milan is very well protected. We must keep her safe there and prepare for the next assault.”
    “How did you find us, anyway?” Gina asked. “I thought Grandpa just left Italy and that was it. He never even wanted to talk about you guys.”
    Emilio surprised me by chuckling. He translated briefly for his grandfather, then turned to us and said, “I can answer this one. We used an extremely magical tool: an address book.”
    We just looked at him. None of us thought this was as funny as he did. I wondered how long I was going to have to live with these weird people, if my dad let me go. Emilio stopped smiling and continued, “Your grandfather wrote his family out of his life, but the family did not do the same. Many who left sent letters home to Milan, and those who stayed in Italy wrote back. I have seen the letters about your grandfather. I have seen the letter that announced your birth, Mia.”
    He held my eyes for a moment. I was the one who looked away.
    “You’ve been spying on us this whole time?” my father snapped. “On top of everything else.”
    Emilio looked sharply at him but took a breath before answering in an even voice. “Not spying. We only knew whatyour names were, how to find you, and … who was still alive.”
    We were all pretty quiet after this.
    “Wait. You knew how to find us, but how did you know that Mia was in trouble?” Gina pressed.
    Emilio smiled at her. He said to Mom and Dad, “You have raised very clever children, I think. I can’t tell you everything, but I will tell you that one way we found out was that a friend of ours told us that your bishop had called Rome in quite a hurry. So we hurried, too.”
    Gina nodded. “I wondered if the priest had told you. He was a good friend of Grandpa’s.”
    Emilio shook his head. “No, not the priest. Most of them can’t afford to associate with us.”
    He looked like he didn’t want to tell us any more. After a moment, though, he chose to go on.
    “This whole experience, as terrifying as it has been for all of you, frightens us for another reason: it’s the first time this particular demon has attacked someone outside of Milan. We didn’t even know it could. We have been struggling with it for so long,” Emilio went on, and I could tell that he had meant to say something else, “that we thought we knew its ways. Now we find ourselves in the dreadful situation of knowing far less than we thought. That’s another reason to bring your daughter, our cousin, back with us.”
    We just looked blankly at him. What was there to say? I could tell my father wanted to make some serious head-of-the-family pronouncement, but even he had to hold back and think.
    Giuliano asked the next question in such a serious voice that I thought he was still talking about Milan or Rome. He wasn’t.
    “Perhaps we could take a break for dinner?” translated Emilio.
    Emilio told me over dinner that Italians usually eat later in the evening than Americans, but that he and his grandfather had both been hungry, very hungry. We went out because my father could tell my mother was too tired to cook (that’s my dad for you, right there—didn’t offer to cook, even though he’s perfectly good at it). I had expected them to want Italian food. But when my father asked, Emilio said, “We noticed an interesting-looking Chinese place on the way from the airport. Is it any good?”
    So we went to The Unusual Luck, and I got to order my two favorite dishes even though I could tell my dad was still angry—at me, maybe—or afraid of me? Odd, anyway, about me. We were pretty quiet up through wontons and egg rolls, but then everybody started to look less shocked and tired right around General Tso’s chicken. I was surprised to see that both Giuliano and Emilio could use chopsticks, and